Former CNN host Campbell Brown was a guest on MSNBC's Morning Joe program yesterday, where she suggested that President Barack Obama would have a better shot at passing gun control laws in the United States if he would stop singling out the Nation Rifle Association and put some of the focus on the violent content created by Hollywood and the video game industry.

Brown has written several op-ed pieces about the issue in publications like the Daily Beast and - most recently - the Wall Street Journal.

Comments

There's nothing wrong with presenting the ideas of too much gun violence or too much media violence. But we have the 1st and 2nd Amendment already, secondly Democrats and Republicans need to quit attacking one "issue" while shamelessly defending the other.

Why do fools attack the amendments to the constitution? All 27 of them are there to PROTECT you (except maybe the 23rd). Weakening any one of them is like removing safety gear from your team because it makes things difficult for the other team which is still wearing all of theirs.

Just watched the clip. Everyone there was way off the mark, especially in regards to Quentin Tarantino. They painted him there as a horrible human being. But the reason he was so praised for his remarks was because he was so candid in the way he called bullshit on the whole argument of media violence.

Also, Presidents HAVE called attention to the problem of media violence. Bill Clinton did it in fact shortly after Columbine. In the case of specific examples, it was enough to prompt the WB to postpone the season finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Warner Brothers to severely edit the home video release of Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker. In a broader case, it caused Hollywood to get cold feet about releasing R-rated movies for decades out of fear of being accused of marketing them to kids. A fear that they seem to be losing once they realised that R-rated movies can and do in fact make money.

And no, there wouldn't have been broader support for a gun control bill if it had included movies, TV and video games. In fact, I think it would have turned off even more people and would have lost points. The present method, such as it is, was the best approach.

Stigmatizng Hollywood wouldn't have worked. They're almost as powerful a lobby as the NRA. And as Bill Maher once said of the matter to then-Sen. Joe Lieberman, "You can't shame an industry made up of people that have no sense of shame."

No. No he doesn't. As I said in the previous thread, the NRA is the single biggest obstacle in gun control reform in that they're like the Mafia in the way they intimidate anyone who opposes them. Focusing on them, with the intention of breaking their back, is the best way of doing that.

This is why I like Obama. Sure, he pays lip-service to the video game and entertainment aspect, but he like us knows that it's all nonsense at the end of the day. I just wish he'd focus more on the mental healthcare aspect of the issue, too.

First I highly doubt it'd help him get any gun laws passed any easier if he were to "stop singling out the NRA". Just really, highly doubt it.

Second, why is it that so many people feel squelching part of the First Amendment for the sake of the Second Amendment is such an awesome idea? Or have so many in the political world already forgotten the 2005 Brown V EMA case?